Posts Tagged “Windows”

Large images can be a hassle to deal with, not only are they large(in space) but many upload services will have dimension requirements. Microsoft created a nifty “powertoy” to do just this, with the toy one can just right-click a image and choose resize. It has 4 predefined dimensions you can change it to, and also will let you use specify any dimension.

A little sloppy file management can lead to duplicate files, which just eat up space on your hard drive. With “Fast Duplicate Finder” you can search your hard drive or folders for duplicate files and erase them.

Many of you TPB addicts know that formats can be annoying. It may be even more annoying to those who are not as tech savvy as the rest of us. Really, when you first started using a computer, didn’t you ever wonder what a divX was? Luckily, VLC has you covered.

VLC can play virtually any audio and video files. From the older formats (ogg, Mpeg 1-3, Rmpeg…) to the newer ones like MPEG4, AVI, WMP, MP3 and many more. It also works as a DVD player with a ton of custom video filters and skins.

Animals have used Camouflage like techniques for years in order to hide them from predators. Well your IM/Video/non-work Window is the prey and coworkers/random people are the preditors. Sure you can minimize when they walk by but that just look suspicious.

Chameleon, is a windows program designed to make selected windows just blend in with what is behind them! You can grab it at enlargeyournerd.com, their website is a bit unique just click on projects, then chameleon to bring up a download link.

One of the major down falls to twitter is when you get too engulfed in it and start following many people. Its nice but the tweets from those special people can go unnoticed. That is where tweet deck comes it, it will let you view pretty much anything on twitter by groups! Check out the video.

If you’re getting a little tired with your windows theme, you’re not the only one. Don’t you wish you could use anybody’s theme? There are a lot of talented designers out there and it’s likley that one of their themes will catch your eye. Sadly, windows isn’t designed to let you use just any theme. So to get the full range of theme options, you will need to do some patching, which I will explain below.

Patching Your System

Make a System Restore Point (if you don’t know how to so this, see the Microsoft Help Page.)

Download theme patcher software

Windows Vista: Download the VistaGlazz program to patch your system. (Note: If you have installed Vista SP1 you will need to download VistaGlazz Beta 1.1 as 1.0 will mess up your SP1 system.

Find a theme that you want to use. A good place to look is deviantART.

Extract the theme’s .zip file to the Desktop.

The folder that you must move the files to is C:/windows/resources/themes extract the .theme file to this folder (not in it’s own subfolder.

Move the .msstyles file into it’s own subfolder in /themes/. This folder name needs to match the .msstyles file (so exampletheme.msstyles would need to be in /themes/exampletheme/) Capitalization matters!

If the theme came with a ShellStyle.dll it must be in a new subfolder themes/exampletheme/shell.

Under the themes tab, choose your newly installed theme. If you cant see it check to see if you followed all of the steps and named the files correctly.

And you’re done! This patch enables any 3rd party windows theme. Here are some great themes to get you started. Happy modding!